Slow Down!!!

This is the swiss campaign for safe driving... I thought it was really cool an funny, and he looks like Jeff Bridges doing "The Dude".

Basel!

From my diary:
Monday 26th of April, 2010.
Sitting by the Rhin, Basel.

About 10 minutes I've been here watching the river pass by and in that time two bottles have passed swaying along down the river.
The westerly breeze which was forecasted is here freshening things down.
The sun is trying to set, behind a veil of misty clouds, giving the whole picture a metallic feel.
The spires of the "Münster" popo out behind the german-architectured buildings that border the river.
Bells ring a couple of times signaling a half hour I don't know which one is. Sounds like coming from the sun, the west, the breeze.
Bells ring again, this time from the Cathedral to my left hand side.
The tram passes by above the bridge. Barges go under. Wakes from them make their way accross the river to crash against these concrete steps where I'm sitting.
I'm not alone, and yet I am. Two girls who just arrived chat and eat a smelly pizza whose smell reaches me with the help of the westerly.
Colorful flags waive on the bridge.
Not a very swiss-german looking guy listening to music to my left stands up and goes. Takes his rubbish with him.
Cases of juice, can of beers and sodas, plastic bottles of water, McDoncald's bags, cigarret packs, cigarret butts all along the steps. I wonder how many other bottles have passed by.
Bells ring again, what time is it?
Pigeons fly in and out, trying to scavange some food from the rubbish left behind.
My legs and bottom are sore. Beautiful ride today. From Strasbourg to Basel, along the Rhin, 130 km of a continous falso plano. Monotonous. Time trialed the last 60 km above 30 Kph average and I can feel the effort now. But is fun to find out how much I can push, how far. Wonder about tomorrow.
Think I should go and talk to the interesting looking girl sitting right next to me.

Half and hour passes by.

Not as interesting as she looked. Maybe it was me. No, it was the two of us, just no connection.
Feeling a little hungry now, where to eat, what to eat... enough of the Rhin. Tomorrow to the lakes, setting up for the Alps :-)

Alternative cycling in Paris

That's one of VELIB's bicycle. Is an alternative way of transport which is implemented brilliantly in Paris and you can just take a bike in any of their stations and leave them at the one near where you're going. So you can ride the whole day with 1 Euro if you use them less than half an hour.
I tried it, just to see how it works, and it's really easy and clever.
Well done!

Oh la la Paris... Oh la la 3011 km!

Well that's two titles in one for this post.
The first is a big oh la la for Paris. I know is not like I'm going to write anything new here about Paris (enough said) but MY GOD! now that's a city! What really got me is how majestic it is, and yet with such an attention to detail. It feels like the city itself is trying to seduce you, and takes you by the hand and guides you almost floating through all of her glory and beauty, never letting you take an eye off the spectacle of her greatness.
A day in a half in Paris, a very casual re-encounter with a cool high school friend, an epic caramel ice cream, and I just want to go back to live more of that city.
Left on Wednesday heading North-east aiming to get to Brussels in a couple of days. Stopped in Saint-Quentin for a night and arrived to Le Bourse at 1530 yesterday after 143 km at 26,1 km/h average. The fastest ride of Le Tour so far, but is not like I'm getting stronger, not at all. That's what happens when the wind is sort of helping you, you ride fast and the ride is fun. So fun and such is the pace that I try to stop only when necessary, and try to combine snacks with gear changing and toilet stops, whereas riding against the wind any excuse is good for stopping.
My odometer shows 8835 km, 3011 km more than when left Genoa. And that's another oh la la! this time for myself. I'm proud of that. I can see myself riding back into Genoa now. Knowing how my body is and how I've been feeling in the last 3 weeks, I can understand better what I have to do in the next few days to complete Le Tour. Is not easy, at all. I'm tired, maybe a little fatigued. Every minute I ride I can feel the damage in my legs and body. I've had to take naps in the last couple of days just because I couldn't manage to keep going after lunch. Makes the riding day longer and gives me less time to disconnect, but I had to stopped, that bad it was.
The last 10 days since leaving the mountains, have been a mixed bag of emotions. Ambiguity is always wandering in my thoughts. I feel like the road and weather set the pace of my feelings. Never flat, the french countryside have been continuous up and down on windy hills. And with it, so goes fonzie, up and down in his moods, in his spirits, in his energies.
The more I ride, the more I'm tired, the more the wind blows, the more I want to keep going and finish the next hill, get to the next little village, the next boulangerie. The weaker the wind makes me feels, the more stubborn I want to be and the stronger I feel when accomplish every little goal I set throughout the day just to make things easier. The stronger I think I am, the more vulnerable I acknowledge myself to be. The more sensible to the weather and my body, the more indifferent I become, none of that really matters I just have to keep going.
Very ambiguous as I said, as an Ambulance company that organizes funeral services (photo). I can only imagine them saying "We're never late!!! but if we are, we got you covered!"
Approximately 1100 km and 9 days to go. I'm sitting here organizing the next days' routes and thinking of the waffle I'll have this afternoon here in Brussels...nice!

Biarritz-Paris 2

Biarritz-Paris

Little things

The wind, has been the main character of the last few days of riding. Definitly, it has stolen the show.
Since I left the Pyrenees it's been consistently coming from where I want to go to. It's been very frustrating. Not only makes the ride a lot harder, slower, and longer, but it's restless to ride against a headwind. Phisically and mentally. When you're on the mountains you only push going uphill and then relax coming down. But against the wind on this hilly terrain, it makes the ride a 150-200 km mild uphill. 7 to 10 hours a day you can't rest, even when going downhill.
And then there's the noise, the bloody stressful noise. Being a sailor I should be used to this. But pedaling for 8 hours with this distant thundering right inside your head non stop, drives me insane.
It's very hard to deal with all this. Specially when I thought this would be the easier part of the trip. I thought the mountains would test myself, but these last 5 days have been the real test. They reminded me of the meaningless of planning. No matter how much you train or prepare and plan for journeys like this, it's nature who has the last call. Weather has been perfect don't get me wrong, sunny warm days one after the other. But my legs and my mind are way more exhausted than what I thought they would at this point.
From Biarritz to Arcachon on wednesday, there're 180 km. I did 210. I left the bag with money and debit card at lunch and I realized it 15 km later. On the evening, one hour from Arcachon, I couldn't take a panini out the bag (tired, wind, hunger) and so I went off at it with such anger, I actually felt ashame of myself. Such is the desperation I reach when riding over 10 hours with this constant buzz in my ears.
But at the end of the day, I feel happy. I feel happy because I arrive and I can rest. I feel happy because I'm out there, free, doing what I chose to do. Doing something that I believe in.
And are the little things that I witness and learn along the way that keep me going. The smell of the forest, the hare that sprinted away scared of my suddent presence, the croaking of frogs while passing a little pond and the wind died down a little to allow me to hear the world. It's finding out that Sort, where I spent my second day on the Pyrenees, means Luck in Catalan, so people go there specifically to buy their lottery tickets.
On Thursday going to Angouleme (a cool little surprise of a town by the way) when the wind was not that strong, I found this group of kattle laying lazily on the grass. And I saw them, and I stared at them, and secretly envied them for being so laid back and restful. But at getting closer I noticed their ears, shaking, every 3 or 5 seconds, all the time. I realized they were shaking the flies off their ears. That must be so annoying I thought. So I smiled, put my head down, and kept going, pedaling away.
Yesterday, was the windier day, and after a bend on the grenhills I saw this cows, again, just chilling. And I started smiling again, but this time there was no shaking, just peace and restfulness. Puzzled, I wondered, and immediatly this white noise spoke right next to my ears and gave me the answer. That same wind which was exhausting me, was blowing the flies away from the kattle's ears. And I smiled again. I smiled at how things work. I smiled because there's a balance, sometimes we're good and sometimes not quite. And I smiled because I knew at some point this wind would let go, veer or back to help me, or if it doesn't then there's must be a lesson there I have to understand.
So I put my head down again, and pedaled and pedaled and pedaled... and thought it would be cool to be able to shake my ears like that to scare flies and mosquitoes, or this bloody wind... and I pedaled.

PS: can't upload pictures in this... bar with computers! tomorrow Paris so I should then...